Issue No. 610
Opinion
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31 Oct. - 6 Nov. 2002 Issue No. 610 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Confronting the conundrum
The events of 11 September highlighted the need for Arabs to examine the relationship between religion and the state. Abdel-Moneim Said* wonders whether they will have the courage to do so
The Arabs' knee-jerk response to 11 September was to deny that the perpetrators were Arab and that the events had anything to do with Arab society and culture. Arab satellite stations and dailies found rich fodder to sustain their flights from reality in a panoply of wild conspiracy theories. Not far behind, Arab public opinion, though never polled, was, for the most part, adamant that Bin Laden was as innocent as the wolf was of Joseph's blood.
The reason for such escapism had little to do with the horror of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; it had much to do with the fear of self-examination in terms of the relationship between religion and the state and religion and society in all Arab countries over the past half century. To have confronted the implications of 11 September with an element of courage would have cast to the fore the issue of political Islamism, which Arab societies have been so assiduously avoiding. As this phenomenon escalated in its tenacity until it entrenched itself in full force in Afghanistan, and as the reach of violence and terror extended to capitals around the world, from Cairo, Riyadh and Algiers to Moscow, Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Islamabad and, most recently, New York and Washington, the greater was the rush to look the other way.
It is curious that virtually the entire Arab world rushed to blame the US for "creating" Osama Bin Laden during the war to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviet occupation and, consequently, it had no right to complain now about the Al-Qa'eda leader's terrorist acts. Meanwhile, the Arabs were contesting that Bin Laden was at all responsible for the attacks on New York! This, too, represents an attempt to evade responsibility on the part of those Arab governments that supported the "Afghan jihad", which sought not only to destroy the Soviet camp but also to rid Islamic lands of heretics.
The support for the Afghan movements coincided with religious-political ideologies that aimed to impose, by various means, a specific way of life on many peoples of the world. This trend emanated from a vision of the self with respect to the world, centring around the notion of a confrontation against a broad front of "crusader" forces in the East and West. It is surprising that the Arabs who lashed out at Huntington and his right-wing disciples in the US, and who had indignant conniptions at Bush's slip of the tongue involving the word "crusade", never once denied that the prevalent tendency in the Arab world is to cast Arab confrontation with others in that historical mold. This phenomenon did not apply to the rhetoric of those radical revolutionary anti-Western regimes, but rather to those moderate nations that are allied with Western countries and whose prosperity is directly dependent upon the economic health of Western countries.
The Arab world is grappling with one of the most important conundrums confronting the modern state. In the problematic of the relationship between religion and the state, the scales in the Arab world have tipped in favour of religion at the expense of the state. Plato was the first to address this problematic in Laws. In this work, one of the many in which philosophical ideas are advanced in dialogue form, it is established that the civilised state is that which is ruled by law -- rules created by the political authority to regulate public life -- rather than by arbitrary force. However, laws, like life, change. Therefore, the ability to introduce new and appropriate laws at the right moment becomes the criterion to gauge the advancement of the state. It is further established that lawmakers vary between the tendency to preserve the status quo, which in its most extreme forms causes stagnation, and the tendency towards constant change, which in its worst manifestation generates chaos. The political process of legislating resides between these poles and, according to Plato, should bring to bear the wisdom of elders over the age of 50. But, these elders' penchant for the old and long- established must be tempered, and among Plato's recommendations towards this end were listening to music and imbibing wine.
Yet Laws is of particular interest because it raises one of the most important issues to have preoccupied mankind since the dawn of history. The "stranger in Athens", as one of the protagonists of the dialogue is called, asks his interlocutor whether the source of law was "divine" or "human". This was the first time that political thought was presented with the crucial enigma: does law -- the rules organising the activities of a human society -- emanate from a higher wisdom residing outside the human mind or from the human mind, itself, which directly interacts with the world around it?
The Arab and Islamic world has been confronted with this question since the emergence of the modern state. It has attempted to navigate this situation through assorted processes of compromise, fabrication and subtle and delicate balances. Thus, most Arab constitutions and organic laws state that Islam is the state religion and Shari'a the source of law, while rendering the practice and implementation of legislation contingent upon the will of the civil authorities and their elected, or non-elected, legislative bodies. This was not acceptable to the political Islamist movements that began to emerge in the 1920s, with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which either used or renounced violence as circumstances dictated.
Three quarters of a century has passed since the "martyrdom" of Hassan El-Banna and ascendancy of the "holy warrior" Osama Bin Laden. Undoubtedly, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood will -- and rightfully so -- vehemently deny this association, pointing to the policies of moderation and the will for peaceful change that have prevailed in the organisation over the past few decades. However, the issue at stake is not one of attributing blame, but rather of addressing the ideological and perceptual foundations that have led to the severest crisis confronting the Arab state while, at the same time, its political and intellectual elite rush to bury their heads in the sand.
What has happened during the past three-quarters of a century is that the balance between religion and the state has become so skewed as to give rise to the Taliban and, under its protective wing, the Al-Qa'eda organisation. Both the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda are governed by three primary attitudes. First, the world outside Islam can only bring evil and treachery, necessitating a constant jihad against that "outside", which is embodied in the West. Second, human beings are weak, their minds and souls easily lured to evil, especially as regards matters pertaining to women. It follows, thirdly, that the powers of coercion vested in the authorities should be brought to bear to reform behaviour and subdue the sources of weakness and temptation.
Consideration of these notions is essential because, in their broadest forms, at least, they frequently make an appearance in "Islamic" political thought. They governed, to a considerable extent, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and various "Islamic" groups have sought to apply them in narrower scopes on Muslims -- and non-Muslims -- in villages, cities and neighbourhoods throughout the Islamic world.
The crux of the issue, as we have seen, is very old; it was posited in Greek political thought more than 2,000 years ago, but it has urged itself forcefully on political thought in Islamic countries where it has played itself out in dramatic confrontations throughout the 20th century. The various Islamist groups, in their shades from moderate to extremist, from the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda, and the Islamic revolutions from the Mahdist revolution in Sudan at the end of the 19th century to the Turabi revolution in the same country at the end of the next century, were manifestations of this problematic which continues to confront the Muslim people.
The fact is, Islamic countries were indeed governed by the tenets of Islamic Law since the founding of the Caliphate following the death of the prophet. Across Islamic history, caliphs, kings and emirs claimed to represent the heart of pure religion and the pillars of the Muslim community. This persisted until the 19th and 20th centuries, which wrought the humiliation of the Muslim peoples and the end of the Caliphate in Istanbul, as one Islamic country after the other fell under the occupation of non-Muslim countries which were superior in the production of higher standards of living.
Upon independence, Muslim nations were once again faced with the crucial question of religion versus the state. But, as they began to restructure their lives and formulate new laws commensurate with the exigencies of modern life, they were confronted with the relentless opposition by Islamic movements to the processes of modernisation, which they charged were unacceptable forms of Westernisation. With the end of the Nasserist pan-Arab nationalist movement, the Islamist movements over the past three decades penetrated public life pervasively in all Arab countries without exception. Mobilising youth, in particular, around three issues -- hostility to the West, Palestine and chastity of women -- they gradually succeeded in appropriating public discourse, compelling public authorities to adopt their logic and philosophical outlook. One result of this was a schizophrenia in the Arab media between what it broadcasts to the world abroad and what it tells citizens at home. Specifically because of this conflict, terrorism arrived to breach the gap between the two rhetorics, firstly in the Arab world and then abroad.
It is important to note that the various "Islamist" forces were implicated in the terrorism at home. Yes, they regularly condemned the terrorist acts perpetrated by militant Islamist groups; however, they would always append to their condemnations the observation that the issue was not merely terrorism, but the root causes that gave rise to it, specifically, Western cultural encroachment, social injustice and excessive licence for women. Although their argument is valid to some extent, it simultaneously offered a justification for terrorism. It further suggested that if the views of the "moderate" Islamists had been heeded and put into effect the violence would never have occurred.
When the Luxor massacre occurred, the Islamist Al-Shaab newspaper hastened to protest that there was no clear evidence linking it with militant Islamist groups and that Israel's Mossad must have perpetrated it in order to destroy the tourist industry in Egypt. Thus Mossad has always been on hand to bear responsibility, both for the incident at Luxor and for the hijack-bombing in New York and Washington. Thus, too, has the Arab world shirked, twice, from calling the Islamist movements to account, just as it has avoided confronting the fundamental questions concerning the development of the modern state.
Building is a long and arduous process; blaming others has always been easy and costs nothing. Denial is easy, whereas assuming responsibility is extremely difficult. After all, who wants to look at themselves in the mirror and see the truth?
* The writer is director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
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